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Found 25 article(s) for author 'Robert Lawrence'

China Is Vulnerable But Deal Unlikely. Robert Lawrence, May 17, 2019, Audio, “Robert Lawrence, Professor of International Trade and Investment at Harvard Kennedy School and former economic advisor to President Clinton, on why a China trade deal is looking unlikely in the near future. Martin Stephan, the Deputy CEO of Carbios, a French recycling biotech company, on their technology that aims for zero plastic waste. Alex Webb, Bloomberg Opinion technology columnist, discusses his column: “Amazon-Deliveroo Alliance Would Eat Uber For Dinner.” Will Rhind, CEO of GraniteShares, with his mid-year outlook on gold and oil. Hosted by Lisa Abramowicz and Paul Sweeney.” Link

Can the Trading System Survive US–China Trade Friction? Robert Lawrence, September 13, 2018, Paper, “Donald Trump has sought to change US trading relationships by raising protection at home and taxing the offshore activities of US companies abroad. These measures, which both use and violate trade rules, have provoked retaliation from other countries. Such friction has restricted and distorted trade and investment, undermined the rules‐based trading system and perhaps permanently damaged global value chains that depend on stable rules for market access. Trump has justified some of his measures as a response to China’s alleged unfair practices and indeed, China has adopted industrial and technology policies that are formally neutral between domestic and foreign firms but in practice have led foreign firms to complain about discriminatory practices that favor Chinese firms.” Link

Trump’s Goal With China Is Big Tariffs, Not A Deal. Robert Lawrence, August 15, 2018, Audio, “Robert Lawrence, Professor of International Trade and Investment at the Harvard Kennedy School and former economic advisor to Clinton, on the deal that Trump really wants with China. Hosted by Pimm Fox and Lisa Abramowicz.” Link

U.S. Should Use Allies, WTO, To Combat China On Trade. Robert Lawrence, July 9, 2018, Audio, “GUEST: Robert Lawrence, Professor of International Trade and Investment at Harvard Kennedy School and former economic advisor to President Bill Clinton, on the global supply chain and whether trade globalization can be undone at this point.” Link

US-China Trade Frictions and the Global Trading System. Robert Lawrence, 2018, Book Chapter, “Recent trade frictions between the United States and China have violated several rules and practices of the rules-based multilateral trading system established under the General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade (GATT) and its successor, the World Trade Organization (WTO). President Donald Trump’s preoccupation with trade balances in goods, both bilateral and total, has led to protectionist trade policies at home— primarily to minimize imports and offshoring by US firms—and aggressive demands for more market opening abroad. President Trump appears to view trade not as an activity from which all nations can gain but rather as a zero-sum game in which some win and some lose.” Link

Five Reasons Why the Focus on Trade Deficits Is Misleading. Robert Lawrence, March 2018, Opinion, “President Trump has asserted that trade balances are a key measure of a nation’s commercial success and that large US trade deficits prove that past trade approaches have been flawed. But trade deficits are not in fact a good measure of how well a country is doing with respect to its trade policies. Many of the assumptions on which the administration’s beliefs rest are not supported by the evidence. This Policy Brief argues that trade deficits are not necessarily bad, do not necessarily cost jobs or reduce growth, and are not a measure of whether foreign trade policies or agreements with other countries are fair or unfair. Efforts to use trade policy and agreements to reduce either bilateral or overall trade deficits are also unlikely to produce the effects the administration claims they will and instead lead to friction with US trading partners, harming the people the policies claim to help.” Link

Trade deficits caused by foreign borrowings; Harvard economist at Sri Lanka forum. Robert Lawrence, February 9, 2018, Video, “Trade and current account deficits are a result of foreign borrowings, a US economist told a forum in Sri Lanka as US President Donald Trump mistakenly attacked trade deficit based on false Mercantilist doctrine. Exporting more will not reduce a trade deficit, Robert Lawrence, a professor at Harvard University’s Kennedy School of Business told an economic forum organized by Advocata Institute, a Colombo-based think tank.” Link

Recent US Manufacturing Employment: The Exception that Proves the Rule. Robert Lawrence, November 2017, Paper, “This Working Paper challenges two widely held views: first that trade performance has been the primary reason for the declining share of manufacturing employment in the United States, and second that recent productivity growth in manufacturing has actually been quite rapid but is not accurately measured. The paper shows that for many decades, faster productivity growth interacting with unresponsive demand has been the dominant force behind the declining share of employment in manufacturing in the United States and other industrial economies. It also shows that since 2010, however, the relationship has been reversed and slower productivity growth in manufacturing has been associated with more robust performance in manufacturing employment.”Link

Manufacturing and Inclusive Growth: The Experience in the Rest of the World. Robert Lawrence, 2017, Paper, “This report describes some of the results from the second phase of the research project on the role of manufacturing in inclusive growth. The first phase of the project examined the US experience. In the second phase, undertaken by Robert Lawrence and Danial Lashkari – a graduate student in the Harvard Department of Economics, the scope of the analysis has broadened to explore the experience of manufacturing employment growth in the rest of the world.” Link

Making US Trade and Investment Policies Work for Global Development. Robert Lawrence, , Paper, “In an interconnected world, sustainable and inclusive economic growth in less developed countries helps to secure US interests and values. Economic development nurtures peaceful societies, reduces refugee flows, ameliorates humanitarian crises, expands markets for US exports, and safeguards human rights and other core US aspirations. Well-designed trade and investment policies are indispensable tools to achieve these objectives.” Link

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